As Stuart Elliott pointed out in an article in Tuesday's New York Times, much of the attention on new ways to generate adveritisng still revolves around television and television properties because TV advertising remains the largest medium for advertising, so that both network executives and ad agencies alike have a strong interest in the future of the medium and in how both should react to new technologies and new viewer patterns.
The article examines the new deal taking place with ITN Networks. According to Elliott, the New York-based media sales company is known for assumbling "customized national TV networks for advertisers from teh commercial time it buys from local broadcast stations," working with such major advertisers as Johnson & Johnson, Burger King, and Capital One, among many others.
A media group consisting of Sony Pictures Television, Veronis Suhler Stevenson, and the Zelnick Media Corporation, is buying the majority of ITN, with plans to invest up to $250 million. The plan is to spread ITN's reach into cable and satellite television, as well as growing advertising platforms such as video games and the Internet. Elliott provides a helpful breakdown of what each of the partners involved in the purchase are involved in and known for as well.
With capital from extant players in the media industry being fueled into new and innovative groups like ITN, the industry is proving that, even as it is trying to maintain consistency in the current plan, there are myriad contingencies being accounted for and alternatives being prepared for when the traditional overall impressions and 30-second spot ship starts sinking even more. The one thing that has always been true in a capitalist society and in advertising in parciular is that the only fact that stays the same is that everything changes.
The article also covers the CBS/TiVo deal I wrote about here earlier this week, in which several previews and/or shows are made available to TiVo viewers before the general viewing public, in hopes that these lead users will become advocates for the program and spread the word of their quality before their widespread broadcast debut.
Thanks to William Uricchio for sending this along.
